Shelby Ferguson

Land Where My Fathers Died is the story of a young man's search for identity, love, and his place in the world. While incarcerated six years for a murder he never committed, Jo Shelby Ferguson lost his only family in a highway accident. Upon his release from the Mississippi state penal farm, a trunk, the only earthly possession left to him, yields several bundles of old letters. Upon reading the first letter, he discovers they are written by his great-great-great grandmother.

Inherit the Land is the story of Jo Shelby Ferguson’s return from Mexico to the Mississippi Delta and of his reunion with his childhood sweetheart, Athen, the daughter of the landowner Jo Shelby believes illegally possesses land that belongs to his family. Athen learns of his designs, which includes returning part of the land to the Negroes farming it. Sparks fly. She leaves him. Her two nefarious brothers abduct him and leave him in the middle of the night—bound, gagged and hooded in a cotton field.

Receiving word a legal judgment could revert ownership of a plantation to him and his family if he can find the will, Jo Shelby Ferguson returns to Mexico with Athen, his childhood sweetheart whose father owns the plantation, in search of the will.